With our janky little playbook settled, we continue through the labyrinth. I stop for a moment to wonder what the theoretical minotaur is up to and come to the conclusion that if he isn’t here, I don’t care what he’s up to. Hopefully we’re wrong, and it was just a bear. How many levels of spear do I need to take down a minotaur? Can a spear take down a minotaur? Can a boar?
We turn up a corner and there’s something we haven’t seen yet. Torches. Alternating sides of the walls, maybe twenty-five paces one to the next. When you’re right next to one, it’s fairly blinding. They’re nicely made, with metal straps around the fire end.
This begs several immediate questions. Why torches? I look at the ceiling and it’s insanely high. It goes up maybe two full stories, the torchlight barely illuminating it. The crystal moss that glows throughout the labyrinth is not here. Maybe it needs rough walls to cling to or something, but these walls look cut. It’s not the right environment for the glowing moss I’ve become used to. That’s an easy answer. The hall itself is wide. We can easily walk all three of us next to each other. Next question – who put them there and how do they stay lit? Are they attached or can I grab one?
It is not impossible there is some sort of maze keeper’s union, and munchkins or something run around and make sure the torches are lit. We haven’t seen a maintenance crew, but maybe they stay hidden, like a good roadie. Minos’ Maintenance Minions. Yeah, never mind, that’s not it.
I wonder if it’s possible that we’ve somehow changed territories. We’ve gone from wild labyrinth to more suburban labyrinth. Baco forces his prodigious snout against where the floor meets the wall, snorts and swallows.
“Sadie, you have any idea who lights these torches? Could it be satyrs? You guys seem pretty good at igniting things.”
We approach one of the wall mounted torches and she touches the shaft of it.
“Yes. That’s all us satyrs are good for, what with their flaming fists,” she says. “I have no idea who’s doing this. Again, I’m not big into crafting skills. Maybe if one of us was, we’d be able to know right off. To me, it’s just a torch.”
Baco suddenly jumps from the wall where he’s been snorting whatever, and takes a wide stance, head low, peering past the next torch. His fat bristly ears pull against his neck, and a low rumble comes from him, which I don’t think is gas. I pull the stake from my belt loop and it silently extends to spear. I nod to Sadie, barely a signal, and her fists ignite. She knows what I want without making up alphabet plans and I can’t think of a letter plan that makes sense in this hall against an unknown opponent. This is why plans are stupid. You can’t plan for the different setups that you need plans for. Just wing it.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I step in front of my bondlings for a better view. After the next torch up the hallway there’s a T-junction. For Sadie’s sake, maybe a Tau Junction.
A war boar tears out of the hallway up ahead, galloping so fast that it bounces off the wall in a turn that wasn’t quite sharp enough. A second battle pig follows, coming from the other side of the junction. One left, one right, coming way too fast to outrun.
Suddenly, this big hallway feels a lot more like we’re standing in a subway tunnel with the pork chop express barreling down at us.
“You good attacking your brothers, big guy?” I ask. Baco paws the ground in anticipation.
“Once you summon, the loyalty is to you,” Sadie says, bracing for combat. “Plan?”
It’s a hallway with war boars. We fight, they die, we win. I’m not sure why she needs a plan. I cave to her to keep her confidence up.
“Narrow Upsilon,” I say. The shape fits the corridor.
Sadie goes long, hooves pumping, and hands on fire. I signal Baco. He slams into gear right up the center of the hall. I fade back up the passage, spear over my shoulder, and it knows my move, lengthening into a javelin. I throw.
Sadie shouts and hurls two fireballs, underhand, one from each fist, targeting the charging boar on her side. I was unaware that war boars could get a wide-eyed look of surprise. He fails to stop, skidding into the point of dual impact. The boar on my side takes the much more defined single impact of my javelin directly between the shoulder blades. For some reason, the javelin ricochets off.
When Baco gets up to the two chargers, it is cannibal carnage. He slams into each, head down, flinging them off of his head like a shovel throwing piles of pork sausage into the walls. Sadie’s does not get up. Baco pins the other to the wall with his head, giving me time to get past, grab my spear and run the thing completely through at the soft behind the ribs.
I knew we didn’t need a plan.
“This one is wearing armor,” I say. I’m not even wearing a shirt, but the one I hit with the javelin has on some sort of hardened leather body rig and a pig fitting helmet with tiny iron spikes running from brow to snout. The boiled leather backplate is scratched from my spear, but it deflected that shot and kept him alive a few moments longer. “Baco, you want armor?”
Baco looks at me, then to the armored boar, then back at me, and starts prancing like he’s gotta pee real bad. I know he doesn’t, because when he has to, he just does. He doesn’t even stop walking. Sadie starts butchering the boar that’s already partly pre-cooked. Looks like we’re having dinner soon. Maybe one of us can distract Baco with some grubs while the other preps dinner.
I undo the buckles under the belly of the monster. The quality of the buckles is impressive. I undo the chin straps and check out Baco’s new headgear. It goes down the sides of the face, with eye cut outs, and has awesome little spikes along the top of the snout. He sits as I strap his gear on.
I tighten everything up, and with the haft of my spear, I tap each of his shoulders in ceremony.
“I now present to you Brigadier Baco.”
I have never seen a prouder pig.
You’ve gained the Summon Boar (Emerging, Level 2) skill.
